Inspired by DeSmog UK's recent exposure of Patrick Moore's work for European coal, this post summarizes known connections of those involved in the CO2 CoalOILition. People were tagged Coal and/orOIL, explained below.1 For example, of 18, five worked directly for Exxon, Shell or the American Petroleum Institute. Also, 14 have been involved with Heartland ICCC meetings.

Perhaps Dr. Bengtsson did not know that GWPF was the nearest UK equivalent to the Heartland Institute and the two were quite closely coupled.

FOIA Facts 5 - Finds Friends Of GWPF analyzed AAC Chairman David Henderson's email to a list that included 19 Heartland experts, speakers, employees or consultants. Then, another eight Heartland-related people were GWPF or AAC members, including Henderson himself. The full To: list was quite instructive.

Both Heartland and GWPF are tax-exempt political “charities” that have little to do with science except to attack it. Perhaps Dr. Bengtsson has now learned that one is known by the company they keep and a credible scientist had fallen into very bad company. Hopefully he has indeed learned.

In what has become an annual non-event, the Heartland Institute will gather the who’s-who of the global warming denial network together in Chicago this weekend for the fourth International Conference on Climate Change.

As in years past, the event is expected to receive very little mainstream media coverage. The deniers like to think the reason is some liberal media conspiracy. In reality, the lack of interest stems chiefly from the fact that this denial-a-palooza fest is dripping with oil money and represents a blatant industry effort to greenwash oil and coal while simultaneously attacking the credibility of climate scientists.

Despite the lack of press interest, the show must go on. After all, the Chicago meet-up will provide deniers and industry front groups a chance to coordinate their ongoing efforts to smear the reputation of the IPCC, and they can reminisce about the Climategate non-scandal like boys in the schoolyard kicking around a rusty old can.

For insight into the underlying aim of the Chicago denier conference, let us take a look at the funding sources for the sponsoring organizations.

Among the many conservative think tanks faithfully pushing the skeptic message in Washington, D.C., few are as prominent—or, should I say, infamous—as the Heartland Institute. The “independent” research and non-profit group has the dubious distinction of having organized the first major denier-palooza, the “International Conference on Climate Change,” last year. Despite a less than stellar showing, and an even more lukewarm follow-up in March, it’s hoping that the third time will be the charm.

The likes of Senator James Inhofe, Lord Christopher Monckton and Anthony Watts will be descending on the Washington Court Hotel this week to discuss the “widespread dissent to the asserted “consensus” on the causes, consequences, and proper responses to climate change.” Its ostensible purpose will be to “expose Congressional staff and journalists to leading scientists and economists in the nation’s capital” and demonstrate that “global warming is not a crisis and that immediate action to reduce emissions is not necessary”—which it calls the emerging consensus view of (the handful of) scientists outside the IPCC.

A favorite theory of prominent “skeptic” Dr. Richard Lindzen just had a fatal encounter with a 60 million old snake.

Researchers from the University of Toronto discovered the bones of this massive bus-sized reptile in a coal mine in Columbia and published their findings in the prestigious journal Nature. How big was this monster? About 42 feet long, it weighed as much a small car. It would have had trouble slithering through a standard doorway. Its girth would come up to your belly button.

The size of this massive snake also shows the tropics were much warmer than previously believed.Snake size depends on temperature - the hotter the bigger. For this beast that snacked on crocodiles to thrive, temperatures in the tropics must have averaged 30 to 34 degrees Celsius – three to four degrees hotter than the present. That throws cold water on the “thermostat” theory championed by Lindzen that in a warming world, the poles will warm much more than the equator, sparing the tropics from the worst of climate change.

If you think those who have long challenged the mainstream scientific findings about global warming recognize that the game is over, think again. The denial machine is running at full throttle – and continuing to shape both government policy and public opinion.

Pages

"Fossil-fuel companies have spent millions funding anti-global-warming think tanks, purposely creating a climate of doubt around the science. DeSmogBlog is the antidote to that obfuscation." ~ BRYAN WALSH, TIME MAGAZINE